The Danish loudspeaker manufacturer Scandyna A/S makes ‘Podspeakers’ in an innovative design for the consumer market. After amazing success in the Danish market, Scandyna wanted to focus abroad and begin exporting their products to the EU, North America and the Far East.

Entering export markets requires that the products are tested and approved. But each trade union or even each country has its own statutory requirements. This meant that Scandyna needed to know what product labelling requirements applied to their Podspeaker products, which have integrated amplifiers fro 230 V, where some of the loudspeakers have integrated radio modules with wireless function.

“We wanted to get an overview of the regulatory rules so we would know which approval procedures we needed to get started. But we found it was difficult finding one single place that had a complete overview of the legal requirements for approvals and the authorities weren’t especially helpful in that area. Every trade union or even country has its own rules, which means that you cannot use the same test and documentation from country to country. In addition, we needed to know the requirements for our loudspeakers with integrated amplifiers and wireless Bluetooth and WiFi modules,” says Scandyna CEO, Bent Hovendahl.

Scandyna therefore contacted FORCE Technology, who has specialists in regulatory requirements for electronic products and asked FORCE Technology to advise them on the regulations regarding electronics and wireless functions in loudspeakers for the consumer market in the different export countries to which Scandyna wanted to export.

Valuable reference work of labelling requirements

“Kristian Baasch Thomsen from FORCE Technology quickly got involved. I knew immediately that I had come to the right place because he very quickly understood the nature of the task. He got together all of the necessary information about labelling requirements in the different countries,” explains Bent Hovendahl.

FORCE Technology delivered a full report to Scandyna with an overview of which marketing requirements and approval procedures applied to which individual countries, and what were the technical requirements for getting approval for the loudspeaker products in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, Israel, Russia, Hong Kong and China.

“We got help in the form of valuable reference work of approvals and labelling requirements for the different countries. It’s really valuable, when we are launching a new product. We use it all the time as a reference,” says Bent Hovendahl.

Now we are at the forefront

Scandyna has acquired the necessary knowledge to take strategic decisions about which export markets that are profitable for them to enter and what it will cost to enter the markets. Bent Hovendahl and his team are now stronger in terms of their export markets:

“We have gained a really good overview of the rules for product labelling and at the same time are confident about approvals. It isn’t something that takes us unaware any more – we are at the forefront. Previously, our customers abroad said that we needed this and that test and labelling. But is it really necessary? Approvals are often very expensive and must be made locally, by certified agencies. It has been important for us to have this report from FORCE Technology, which provides us with the answer to of whether it is necessary to carry out this and that test, for example in Israel. In some cases, we have been able to tell customers that the approval that they name is not legally.”

Focused choice of markets

The reference section has given Scandyna valuable insight into the rules and focused their approach to the choice of markets and market requirements. Bent Hovendahl says:

“There have been some export markets that we have deliberately dropped because we could see that our investments in the actual approval would not be beneficial – it would simply turn out to be too expensive for us to launch in the relevant country. In addition, we have saved a lot of money on approval testing because we learned the test wasn’t necessary or because we only needed to carry out a single test combining the requirements of several countries and in that way got a cheaper price from the test agency.”

Integrated into product development

The report from FORCE Technology has also been useful for Scandyna’s development projects. Now from the very start of the product development, they can include what the requirements are for the product to be approved. This has enabled them to act more pro-actively and saved them vital time during the development phase:

“What’s great is we can use the reference section already during the product development process to see what our new products must contain, for example which power supply shall be integrated so that the product can be approved, for example in the USA or the EU. In this way we are stronger when it comes to the competition,” says Bent Hovendahl.